Precision Medicine, Genome Myths and the Imago Dei

​​Precision medicine has captured the public’s attention, and President Barack Obama established a research initiative with a $215 million investment in January 2015. This Precision Medicine Initiative promotes an emerging approach to medicine that incorporates an understanding of the genetic, environmental, and behavioral factors affecting health. This model seeks the most effective approaches to diagnosing and treating illness, with an emphasis on the use of genomic information, big data, and targeted therapies. At present, precision medicine’s greatest triumphs are in oncology, but critics claim that precision medicine is more hype than help, since enthusiasm appears disproportionate for the existing science. Still, who would argue for imprecise medicine?

Precision medicine attempts to advance medical care through clinical implementation of emerging science and technology, especially from genomics, but the moral import of genomic information is different for researchers trained by a scientific community and patients shaped by popular culture. Each side of the bench-to-bedside pipeline adheres to particular (and sometimes conflicting) myths of the genome that shape thought and practice, but for now, both see clinical use of genomics as progress. Clinicians and others working in between bench and bedside may find themselves in the midst of a conflict between competing narratives as precision medicine advances, and anticipating the points of tension will allow these mediators to better navigate the evolving use of genomics in the clinic.

The technological and organizational progress promised by this change will also challenge cultural and religious traditions to respond to the myths driving medical – and perhaps human – evolution. While such challenges are not novel, the particulars of this encounter between the sacred and the scientific will be new. Within the Christian tradition, the Imago Dei and the Incarnation of Christ have provided theological terms for handling the human body, and they communicate an alternative myth that provides for Christian bioethics. A revisiting of these terms in light of the dynamic relationship of the genome and the body, and the myths of science and society, provides a constructive yet cautious means for engaging with precision medicine.